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Committee, it is also noteworthy, expressly pointed out that there had been no amendment of the
Constitution in accordance with Section 29(4) of the Constitution by two-thirds majority and as
such they had not to deal with that situation.
1561. Another case to which reference was made on behalf of the petitioners was The Bribery
Commissioner v. Pedrik Ranasinghe [1965] A.C. 172. In that case it was found that the members of
the Bribery Tribunal had been appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Minister of
Justice in accordance with Bribery Amendment Act but in contravention of Section 55 of the Ceylon
Constitution. [Ceylon (Constitution) Order in Council, 1946] according to which the appointment of
judicial officers was vested in the Judicial Service Commission. It was held that a legislature has no
power to ignore the conditions of law-making that are imposed by the instrument which itself
regulates its power to make law. This restriction exists independently of the question whether the
legislature is sovereign, as is that of Ceylon.
1562. It would appear from the above that the point of controversy which arose for determination in
that case was different from that which arises in the present case because we are not in this case
concerned with any law made by a legislature in contravention of the Constitutional provisions
Reference has been made on behalf of the petitioners to a passage in the judgment wherein while
dealing with Sub-section (2) of Section 29 of the Ceylon Constitution, the provisions of which have
been reproduced earlier, the Judicial Committee observed that the various clauses of Sub-section (2)
set out entrenched religious and racial matters which shall not be the subject of legislation. It was
further observed that those provisions represented the solemn balance of rights between the citizens
of Ceylon, the fundamental conditions on which inter se they accepted the Constitution and these
are therefore unalterable under the Constitution. It is contended that those observations show that
the rights mentioned in Section 29(2) of the Ceylon Constitution which were similar to the
fundamental rights in Part III of the Indian Constitution, were held by the Judicial Committee to be
unalterable under the Constitution. There was, it is further submitted, similarity between the
provisions of Section 29(3) of the Ceylon Constitution and Article 13(2) of the Indian Constitution
because it was provided in Section 29(3) that any law made in contravention of Section 29(2) shall
to the extent of such contravention be void.
1563. I find it difficult to accede to the contention that the Judicial Committee laid down in the
above case that Sections 29(2) and 29(3) placed a restriction on the power of amendment of the
Constitution under Section 29(4) of the Constitution. The question with which the Judicial
Committee was concerned was regarding the validity of the appointment of the members of the
Bribery Tribunal. Such appointment though made in compliance with the provisions of the Bribery
Amendment Act, was in contravention of the requirements of Section 55 of the Ceylon Constitution.
No question arose